


bend don't break

by transstevebucky



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Coming Out, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s07e08 Hearts Still Beating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Daryl Dixon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22761967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transstevebucky/pseuds/transstevebucky
Summary: Daryl’s not letting them take freedom from him, too. He’s not letting them have it; the way being in open air makes his chest uncoil, makes him feel a little less like he’s standing above a hundred foot cliff edge and waiting to be pushed. The way being outside has always meant being home, has always meant being alive and okay.This is his. He'll claw his way back from hell and take it.
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus
Comments: 11
Kudos: 80





	bend don't break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farkenshnoffingottom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farkenshnoffingottom/gifts).



> this fic is for farkenshnoffingottom, who asked for daryl having to come out when someone sees his scars. i chose post-708 because it felt like the best place for it. i hope you enjoy!
> 
> **warnings for this fic include:  
>  -transphobia (brief, but there)  
> -torture   
> -canon-typical violence and murder  
> -vomit  
> -panic attacks  
> -daryl calling himself a pussy for having human emotions**
> 
> ****if you don't feel up to reading that, please take care of yourself first!
> 
> title from 1st day out tha feds

The wind feels wrong on his face.

God knows how fucking long he spent in that cramped fucking cell, but now the sun feels like it’s flaying him inside and out, eyes slitted against the brightness, body tight as a bow. 

But Daryl’s not letting them take this from him, too. He’s not fucking letting them have it; the way being in open air makes his chest uncoil, makes him feel a little less like he’s standing above a hundred foot cliff edge and waiting to be pushed. The way being outside has always meant being home, has always meant being alive and okay. 

This is his. He _got out_ ; he’s going to fucking stay that way. He’s not succumbing to the fear still wrapped around his limbs like a second skin, like muscle and sinew. He won’t give the Saviors a fucking inch. He’s clawing the path back from hell with cracked fingernails.

A voice in his head, cold and cruel like Dwight’s, says: _you’re never getting out, even if you get out_.

But it doesn’t matter. Whatever that fucking voice says. He’s fucking out. So what if he’s going to carry the weight of torture for the rest of however long he’s got to live, as long as that stays the truth? So fucking what if he dies, as long as he dies a free man?

The bike is heavy and comforting underneath him. Something familiar, something real. Something that isn’t the heavy scent of his own blood and filth and vomit and infection.

If it weren’t for the hands gripping his hips (as gentle as possible, despite the fact being thrown off the bike at this speed with no real leathers would be a fucking death sentence, dumbass) he might think he was dreaming.

But the song isn’t drilling itself into his skull and the air tastes good when he opens his mouth to breathe and -. Fuck. He really didn’t think he was ever going to get out of there.

The hands on his sides change, fingers clenching in before patting once hard: _hey, stop._

Daryl’d been so lost in his head, fighting back Dwight’s sneer and the sound of a skull cracking, he hadn’t even realised where they’d ended up.

Hilltop looms above them in the distance, and Daryl brings the bike to a crawl before turning the engine off.

“Okay,” Jesus says, and he climbs off the bike with too much grace to be a first-timer, “let’s hide the bike in the woods. Plausible deniability.” There’s a look on his face when he says it that’s close to disgust, but Daryl doesn’t think it’s aimed at him.

Not entirely, anyway.

Daryl nods and they walk the bike to the woods, every step sending throbbing pains through his bones.

Killing Fat Joey had only served to screw up every one of his joints, but it was worth it. Every beat of the pipe had felt like benediction, like a saving grace. Maybe he’s lost it, a little, maybe he’s cracking around the edges. But he’s not Negan. He never kneeled. He won’t ever fucking kneel. 

Christ, he’s all kinds of fucked up and sprained and who fucking _knows_ how long he’s got if he doesn’t get some kind of antibiotic and _fast_. The smell of the infected wound sits thick in his throat even through the crappy shirt and flannel he’d stolen during his escape. He’s sort of surprised he’s even still standing, but spite is a hell of a drug.

Jesus looks different. His hair’s a windblown mess but it’s more than that; the set of his jaw tight and muscles jumping every couple of seconds, hands clenching white on the seat leather as they cover the bike with foliage and make it look abandoned as possible. He looks angry. Furious. Like he’s seconds away from committing the same kind of atrocity Daryl’s still covered in.

Daryl probably owes the guy his life. If he hadn’t turned up, a Savior might’ve,seen him bashing in Fat Joey’s skull and just killed him outright, damn what Negan wanted. 

_Jesus saves_ , he thinks, Merle’s voice ringing in his ears, and he swallows back a slightly hysterical laugh.

“You good?” Daryl asks. Feels like the least he can do, given the circumstances.

Jesus turns wide blue-green eyes on him, confusion crossing his features before he pulls a mask over his face and he’s back to being carefully blank. 

It’s eerie as shit. Reminds Daryl of Carol when she does her Stepford Mother routine; all sweet smiles and chipper voice but something absolutely horrifying behind the plastic.

“Am _I_ okay?” Jesus laughs, voice a little cracked. “You’ve been tortured, and beaten, and fuck knows what else, and you’re asking if I’m okay?”

Daryl shrugs. Doesn’t know how to say _honey, this ain’t my first goddamn rodeo_ without sounding like he’s trying to garner sympathy. 

Jesus shakes his head, hair barely moving with how tangled it is under his stupid beanie. He swallows. “I’m fine. I’m fucking angry, but I’m fine. Fuck, you have no idea how much Maggie’s been-.”

Daryl freezes. It feels like every damn cell in his body decides to vacate the damn premises, clanging heavy in his ears. His nails bite into his palms and he knows he’s breathing too heavy, and all he can see is Maggie’s face and her screams and her baby’s not gonna have a fucking daddy, now, it’s all his fucking fault it’s all his _fucking_ fault he’s going to-.

“...-ou’re okay,” Jesus is saying, voice distorted through some filter in Daryl’s head deadset on making him relive every single detail of the night in the clearing. “Daryl? Daryl, hey. You with me?”

_Maggie, I’ll find you._

Vomit rises so quickly he barely has time to turn away from Jesus and his spotless fucking leather duster before all the peanut butter he’d eaten splatters across the soil. 

Jesus jumps back, looking horrified. “Fuck, shit, we need to get you inside. We can talk it over later, but right now you need medical attention.”

Daryl pants, the taste of grime and peanut butter and bile sitting on his tongue. Maggie’s face flashes in his mind again, the way her mouth formed Glenn’s name when she smiled, the way Glenn’s skull collapsed in on itself -.

He gags, bent double and trying desperately to not look like a weak piece of shit. He’s no use to any of them if he doesn’t get ahold of himself. Fucking _pussy_. 

“‘M fine,” he growls, and Jesus makes a noise like _okay, so we’re just going to lie now, huh_. “Can we-.” He feels awful making a request, after Jesus risked his ass trying to save his. He probably didn’t fucking deserve it, and here he is, anyway. “Go in the back, or somethin’.”

Jesus blinks. “Uh. Um, yeah, we can… Are you sure? Maggie will want to see y-.”

“ _No._ ” Daryl’s voice is sharp and angry, cutting over Jesus’ tirade like a gunshot. “I can’t. I can’t see her, right now, I-.” He’s horrifically aware he’s fucking crying, tears in his eyes like some stupid asshole who can’t even keep his shit together. “Please.”

Jesus shakes himself. “Okay. Okay, we won’t. We’ll get you some help, and then -. Well. Later.”

Daryl tries to ignore the way Jesus keeps shooting glances at him as he leads him to the shoddy back entrance of Hilltop. His eyes are like fucking lasers, probing and intense, and after so long of barely even being looked at it feels like he’s under a microscope.

“Saviors took Harlan,” Jesus explains, glancing around and pointing Daryl in the direction of a trailer. “So we’re down a doctor.”

“Can stitch myself up,” Daryl mutters, slipping into the trailer and waiting for Jesus to shut the door behind them.

He takes a moment. Just a moment, to realise: he’s free, he’s okay, he’s going to be fine. Sure, his shoulder hurts like a bitch, and yeah he’s got a hell of an infection, but he’s out of there. He’s out.

Hysteria almost makes laughter topple off his tongue, but he holds it back.

“Do you…” Jesus frowns, wringing his gloved hands together. “Know how to do that?”

Daryl looks at him through the matted mess of grease his hair’s become. “Psht.”

Jesus sighs something that sounds like “well, alright then.”, but Daryl’s too busy shrugging out of the clothes and tossing them elsewhere.

The wound looks (and smells) even worse without the clothes, and he has to breathe through his mouth to stop from gagging again. 

“Hey,” he turns to Jesus, frowning, “have you got any-? You ‘right?”

Jesus is staring at him, horror pulling his brows in tight and his eyes squinting. 

“What the fuck did they do to you?” His voice is raw, broken, like someone’s just put his throat through a fucking industrial woodchipper.

Daryl blinks. Looks down at himself. He’s bruised and swollen and bloodied, but he’s looked worse. There’s a couple shallow knife wounds, too, applied over old scars to maximize pain and humiliation. 

Surely the little asshole can’t be shocked that the Saviors are some sick sons of bitches.

“Uh…”

Jesus takes a halting step forward, hands stretching out before he visibly stops himself and takes a breath. “Christ, did they fucking-. What did they do, you’ve got-.”

He makes a motion over his chest, like he’s drawing two lines under his pecs, and Daryl freezes before _remembering_.

_Smirking, silver glinting in the shallow light. “Alright, you ugly piece of shit, seems like this won’t be too bad. You’re already fucked up, anyway.”_

_Holding back screams as the blade cut into healing scars, breath strangled and broken in his throat._

“Oh. That… that’s not, uh.” Shit. Is this the fucking time?

“Listen, I’ll tell you later, just… Need shit to clean these wounds out, first.”

Jesus nods, but his face is pale and his jaw is twitching like he’s barely holding back a growl. He moves around the trailer, dropping his coat on a rickety table and pulling his gloves off with his teeth as he goes. The box of medical supplies he slips from under the sink is rudimentary, but still far better than Daryl’s had half his life.

Daryl sits down and drags a cracked mirror over so he can see what he’s doing to the wound while Jesus washes his hands and tugs his hair up into a knot on top of his head. If Daryl weren’t so focused on the fact his body feels like it just got turned into hamburger meat, he might flush.

Not like he hadn’t realised how good looking Jesus is, how downright _pretty_ he can be, as well as fucking lethal, but… This is the closest they’ve been since they brought him back to Alexandria after the truck went into the lake.

Jesus passes him supplies. Antiseptic, a bowl of warm, salted water (and shit, he must keep losing time if Daryl hadn’t noticed him heating that up), a pile of bandages and gauze and a needle and thread. 

He goes into his head, after that. This is a dance he’s done for decades; cleaning a wound, stitching and bandaging. Even slightly trembling from hunger and adrenalin backwash, the movements are clean and refined. 

Messier than if he were getting actual medical help, sure. But not half fucking bad considering he taught himself how to close wounds at eleven with fishing wire and a bent hook. 

He tunes out Jesus’ eyes on him. Flushes the wound, threads the needle, slowly starts closing it all up. 

The wound’s a mess; a fucking blast of flesh torn up and foul. He’s lucky he’s still fucking standing, the way they didn’t bother cleaning it.

He peels open a pack of gauze and sticks it to himself before pushing back from the table, legs trembling a little. Jesus looks close to helping him before settling back into the seat. Daryl’d smile if he could remember how.

“Thanks.” 

“I didn’t do anything,” Jesus retorts, but bites his lip. “You said… Did they perform _surgery_ on you?”

Daryl brushes a hand over his chest. It’d been healing so fucking well, until the assholes up and took a blade to him. It’s not like he ever cared about it looking pretty, about not having more scarring. Christ knows he’s got enough to not give a shit about ones he chose to put there. But humiliation burns in his gut anyway. The fact they’d known, they’d laughed while they-.

His breathing is ragged in his throat and he clenches his fist and tries to calm the fuck down.

_C’mon, Darylina, you gonna prove all those assholes right? You a pussy now?_

“Had surgery a year ‘fore the turn.” He turns away from Jesus while he washes his hands, ignoring the way it stings the cuts over his fingers. “Saved up ten goddamn grand for it. Not that tha’ matters, but. It’s… Top surgery, I couldn’t deal with that shit on my chest any more, so I got it taken off.” He swallows. “When I… Saviors… They opened the scars up. Called me trann-.”

Daryl swallows, convulsive. The whole world feels too large and too small at the same time. Like his skin’s begging for a break, telling him to _leave get out now before-._

He glances at the mirror and sees Jesus’ face reflected, slightly distorted but not… Not violent, not ready to beat him or.

“Christ.” Jesus takes in a sharp breath. “Fuck, Daryl, I’m sorry. For forcing you to come out, for what they did, I… I’m so fucking sorry. This… All of this, Glenn-.”

The world fractures. Daryl sees -. Blood, viscera, Maggie’s face twisted with horror and agony, _Maggie I’ll find you-._

“...it’s my fault.” Jesus laughs, shaky. “I got them killed. Got you tortured. If I’d known more before you went in, none of this would-.”

Maybe another time, Daryl would agree. But the world is cruel and dark and the stab wound from a couple months ago still aches, sometimes, with the reminder that the Saviors would have found them sooner or later anyway. “They were gonna find us. Ain’t your fault. We agreed to this. Got cocky.”

Jesus shakes his head. “I… When Sasha and Maggie turned up, when they came through the gates, I knew. There was nothing I could do, nothing I could say. Besides that I’d fight every step of the way with them if they wanted me to. If they’d let me.”

Jesus looks up at him, crystalline eyes bright and fiery and intense. It makes Daryl’s stomach flutter. “I’ll do the same for you. I’ll make this right. Or… As right as I can. If you’ll let me.”

And Daryl looks at Jesus and he sees himself; lonely and fractured inside and desperate to be _useful_. Maybe more college-educated and better with people, but still an outsider. Still on the fringes of existence, begging to be let inside and not knowing how to cross the threshold when he’s invited.

He thinks about Denise, the pride on her face before she was killed. The way she’d told he and Rosita they needed to get a grip and face their fucking shit.

“I’ll let ya. If you need it.” He nods. “But you don’t have to. You’re one of us, right?”

Jesus hides a smile and Daryl thinks -maybe he’ll fucking die in a day, in two, in a month. But shit, least he’s going to get a good fuckin’ view before he kicks the damn bucket.

“Right.” Jesus’ smile is like sunshine, and Daryl knows he’s fucked. “Thank you. For telling me, I mean. You didn’t have to.”

“Not a secret.” And it’s true. His whole family knows. Impossible to live in each others asses, the way they have, and _not_ know. He’s not ashamed of it. He spent a long fucking time getting to that point, but he’s not. Not even now, after the Saviors tried to steal it from him.

Rage settles in his bones, hot and thick. “Not a secret. I ain’t ashamed.” He gives Jesus a look that’s half-feral, teeth bared and looming. “I’ll kill anyone who tries an’ says I should be.”

Jesus leans back in his seat. “Good.”

The smile they share, then. It’s bitter and cold and right, at the same time. Something settles in his chest, in his lungs. 

He’s going to kill them. Every last fucking one of them. But he’s going to need help.

Good thing it seems he’s got it.

_Jesus fucking saves_ , he thinks. And the taste of freedom on his tongue is sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm gaydaryl on tumblr and gayjaaryl on twitter, should you wanna talk with me about trans daryl. or any kind of daryl. love that messy bastard


End file.
